


Redux

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-17
Updated: 2008-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Prince and Princess, each as different from the other as dirt is from magic, begin again at the end of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redux

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Carnadine

 

 

"This is inconvenient."

"Feel free not to exercise your mastery of the obvious." Fiona shook her head to get Julian's hair out of her mouth. They wheeled slowly through oblivion, circling one another like a binary star. They were both completely naked, stripped of their clothing, weapons, artifacts, and Trumps. 

Fiona knotted her hair at the nape of her neck and muttered a cantrip that fell flat. Without magic, too, it seemed. However, as her mother would have said, one was never without one's intellect or dignity, except by choice.

"I'm going to assume we're not dead." Julian, big hands floating empty at his sides, was casting about as though he were expecting something to leap out of absolutely nothing and devour him. 

"I should hope I'm not spending eternity with you." That revolting idea gave Fiona a surge of energy, a little crackle of what might have been magic. She was more tired than she had been seconds ago, save for that little burst. Julian was still looking around as though he'd lost something. Oh, for... "People talk about you and that horse, I'll have you know." 

His attention flashed back to her, his eyes widening and his jaw clenching. The moment it happened, though, he frowned.

"Feel better?" Fiona was starting to drift away and she flailed instinctively, like a swimmer thrown in the sea, trying to get back to him. Of all the times she had imagined this potential moment, it had never gone quite like this.

"And worse..." Julian reached out for her and their fingertips brushed. The touch gave her another surge of energy. "Did you feel that?"

Fiona didn't dignify that with a response. She felt something tugging her away and she reached one more time. This time, her slender hand disappeared into Julian's large, rough one. Something about the contact, the closeness, made her feel better. There was no possibility that it was psychosomatic. Usually being near Julian made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"What did this?" He might have been holding her hand, but his attention was anywhere but on her. 

"Guess." Fiona could feel his irritation with her crackling under his skin. If she had to be stuck at the end of everything with someone, it could have been worse. They could have been smart enough to figure things out or too stupid to help.

"That's perturbing." His hand shifted in hers, ruining her attempt to pull a little energy out of him. "I told Merlin to stop playing with that mechanical thing. I knew if he kept at it, it would finally break something."

"His computer?" Fiona snorted. "Little more than a Rolodex. A small library of minutiae," she added, for the benefit of the blank expression on his face. "A useless thing, swiftly outmoded, and kept on only because of the inability of the human mind to keep up with its own adaptations of technology. See, also, your horse." The more she talked, the more concrete she felt. The sensation of fading decreased. Thinking on the problem didn't help, not unless she could balance it with action and emotion, it seemed.

"What the hell are we going to do, since this seems to be the end of the universe? I don't suppose you saw this coming and formulated a cunning plan or something." 

Julian's outburst made her lose focus again. But she sublimated the energy into a little bit of power, something enough to let her stretch her toes down and touch the ghost of a cobblestone. "No. If I'd foreseen this, I wouldn't have chosen you to be my partner in the reconstruction. Now, be quiet." He was silent blessedly long, but the quiet made her power fade and the fact that his hand on hers was, bitterly enough, comforting left her without anything to direct. 

"What is it that I have to do, then?" She was patting infinity with her toes, trying to find the memory of stone that she'd conjured up before, and it took a moment for the question to sink in. She looked up at him and he was looking down at her, his black hair fanned out like the rays of a dark sun. They were each other's opposite, she knew, more than any of the others.

"Hush, and let me work." Oh, for a little cantrip, a tiny bubble of silence. There wasn't even any irritation beyond her own to try for a bit of magic again. There wasn't any time to wonder why he had been saved, even as she refused to indulge Julian in the wondering of how and why all this had come to pass. Sometimes there simply wasn't time to think about all the details. She realized that this was, no doubt, how deeply flawed universes were born.

With that burst of irony, Fiona thought she could feel stone. She began to mimic walking and, beside her, Julian did the same. They weren't weightless, when they put their minds to it, she found, at least not so much that they couldn't organize their limbs. 

One step after another, there was something solid on which to stand. She had created something out of nothing. No Pattern, no Jewel, no Blood, just her brilliance. She would have laughed but this victory wasn't one she was going to share with Julian, even if she were forced to have him here. She hated him, but she had to admit, he was behaving less uselessly than the rest would have.

Eric would have blamed her. Corwyn would have been composing eulogies and looking for Deirdre. Brand would have been trying to kill her, as would most of the others. Flora would have been thrilled at being prettiest and might have been good for killing and eating. Random probably would have wandered off for a drink and a smoke. She might have hated needing him, but Julian knew how to get a job done.

Julian's hand in hers twitched and she felt a sudden rush of pain and longing that wasn't hers at all. She opened to it and stone scraped the arch of her foot. There was another wave of emotion from him and, unused to such lack of self-control, she was swiftly lost in it like a swimmer in the sea.

***

Julian was not thinking of Amber, nor was he thinking of Morganstern. The tearing sensation in his chest was for poor Garnath, so defiled and now gone forever, and for Arden. Arden. How could she, the spindly, vicious little witch, understand what had been lost? Her withered heart would never be able to hold it.

Oh, Cabra, with the sunrise streaming past the brave spike of it like red and gold ribbons. The mountain, the water, the gardens, the black hummus of the soil caught in the prints of his fingers, the green of growing things ground into his flesh, the loss of them all was crushing. He cared nothing for their palace, their throne, their Jewel, their Pattern. Arden.

Chastized to silence by the waif-witch at his side, he had nothing to hold back the immensity of his loss. She had been everything, his Arden, and he had been hers. There was nowhere she did not take him. Damn their Trumps and Shadows. Arden reached from Undershadow to Order and to Chaos. He had found her in a world of steel and glass, a tiny, seething forest of mold the size of his thumbnail, thriving on the underside of a nymph's chromium foot, watered with the spray of a fountain and fed by whatever the wind bore to her. His father had taken him as far from her as possible, and yet, there she was. There she was, and she'd brought him home.

With the next step, his foot hit stone and his anger spurred him to a long stride before his mind could disengage from grieving to understand the meaning of it. His next step struck stone as well, and then there was a tug on his arm and a cry. Julian turned, lip curling with disdain for whatever had intruded on his memories, and he felt something crushed in his hand like a dry leaf. 

Fiona dangled from his grasp, staring up at him from the tumbled fall of her fiery hair, her green eyes alight with outrage. She had stumbled and he had, unknowing, dragged her behind him. He stood, she knelt, on a single stone, a long, narrow stone in the middle of nothing. 

Without any effort, he pulled her to her feet, and even though she was radiating murder, she did nothing to attack him. The stone was stained with red and her blood trickled down her knees as though she were a child who had paid the price for running too fast. And, then, he understood. Energy from the heart, not the mind, was power.

"I had no idea you were so angry," she said flatly, twisting her hand from his grip with a wince that brought him little satisfaction.

"You're the angry one. It wasn't anger I was feeling." He turned away from her and took another step, a stone rising out of eternity to meet the soul of his foot.

"Then what?"

When Julian turned to look at her she was rubbing one small hand with the other, oblivious of the blood drying streaky on her shins, and staring at him as though she could not imagine what other feeling there might be. How anyone could have accused him of being infatuated with her was beyond him. His eyes were always on her for other reasons.

"You felt it, I felt you pull it from me. If you cannot name it, it is hardly yours to have. I have my purpose. You have yours." 

For a moment, he could see her as she was, without the veil of his disdain and distrust of her. She was a firebrand of rage, fury hotter than her hair, her heart a jewelbox of real and perceived indignities each polished lovingly and hoarded as though she were a tiny dragon. He still blamed her for what had happened, for the death of everything, and could only smile at the idea that he had been the one flaw in her plan. If she were to blame, it amused him to be her punishment.

"Are you going to stand there grinning, you great buffoon, or are you going to speak?" Without waiting for an answer, she stormed past him, the great unknown and unknowable void parting before her rage that manifested as stone under her tiny bare feet.

Julian laughed and shook his head, spurring on the beginning of things, and turned to follow. A long strand of his hair clung to his cheek and he wiped it away impatiently, then shook it from his fingers. It fell away to the stone as he followed in Fiona's footsteps. As he walked, he breathed deep, stretched out his mind, and remembered Arden.

***

"Are you sure this is it?" The whisper was soft, but the rattle of a sword and the shifting of scales was not.

"Of course I am. I wouldn't get it wrong." The other voice was higher and full of annoyance. "Why are you wearing those things? You stink like a bucket and sound like a farriery."

The wind played in the pale green leaves of a twisted black tree, tossing around the white blossoms, and the sun cast its shadow on a slanted stone. 

"Jubal! You said you were only going to look."

The boy who stepped into the clearing, one tentative shuffle at a time, was all knees and elbows, a funny little black-haired scarecrow with an armoured tunic hung on him and a short sword at his waist.

"I'm looking closer," he hissed, looking over his shoulder.

"That tree will eat you!" The other child, a chubby girl with red curls, darted out and grabbed him by the belt as the tree swayed, reaching down for him when the wind sighed. A thin branch caressed his cheek, but he stumbled out of the way, thanks to his prettily-dressed companion.

"Essine!" He turned on her with a foot stamp. "I can take care of myself."

She rolled her eyes and, in spite of her warning, sidled around to look at the stone. "There's blood on it," she whispered. Instead of looking horrified, her eyes narrowed, and the workings of her brain were almost audible, tiny gears clashing. "Fresh blood."

"Sacrifices," Jubal said grimly. "I knew it."

A rustle made both of their heads jerk up.

"Run." Jubal pushed Essine in one direction. "I'll meet you back at the well tomorrow morning."

Essine looked as though she were about to protest, and then, lifting her full skirts to reveal tiny satin shoes, she fled. Jubal lingered a little longer, just long enough to snatch a fallen blossom and tuck it in his belt. Then, he went jingling off at a lanky gallop.

The tree went back to playing in the wind and sending blossoms tumbling down the stone.

"I told you that building a wall around this place was a terrible idea." Julian looked up and Fiona tugged her skirts closer around her ankles. "If you'd just let it be..."

"They'd have found it anyway." Fiona let go of her perch and pushed herself out into the open air to drift, ladylike, to the ground. A few flowers caught in her hair, in the cascade of curls at the back, and Julian found a little amusement in saying nothing. He clambered down, his bare feet finding one branch after another, the same way he'd gone up. "And we wouldn't have known they'd breeched the perimeter if I hadn't put wards up at the least."

"I say you wanted them to find it. You can't resist meddling." Julian found his boots under a bush where he'd stashed them and tugged them on. "You want them to know."

"I want them to be curious."

"Can't you just let them be?"

Fiona stared at him as though he were speaking in an alien tongue. "The first two inhabitants of a new universe? The progenitors of the next great race? And you want me to leave them alone?"

"Yes." Julian hooked his thumbs in his swordbelt and rocked back on his heels. The tree flung a few flowers into his hair as well, and he let them cling.

"You come back here often enough," she challenged. "Hoping to find another? We agreed, we'd share what we found."

Twice in past years, under full moons, the roots of the tree split the stone around it in a new place and the stone cut the roots until they bled. But strange galls grew on the emergent roots, galls that opened to reveal a child inside. 

"It is about that time," he pointed out calmly. "Well longer than between Jubal and Essine. Yet, nothing's come. And I would not go back on my word. Though, I'd hoped to have uncovered the purpose of it all by now."

"That's easy." Fiona pulled a little mirror out of her purse and stared deeply into it, past her reflection, until she found what she was looking for. She glanced up at him a moment, her eyes rich as seas and skies and full of disdain. "The Universe knows I wouldn't breed with you if you were the last man left in it." When she looked back into the mirror, she disappeared.

Julian was left alone with his laughter and flowers in his hair. The bushes rustled again and he turned. "It's okay, you can come out now," he said quietly.

A willowy creature came shyly out of the lush greenery, casting adoring glances at Julian from under long, white lashes. Its silver hooves crushed crescents into the emerald and indigo tinted grasses underfoot as it lost its shyness and gambolled the rest of the way to Julian's side. He stroked back its forelock as it laid its head against his shoulder and huffed into his hair emphatically.

"Don't worry," Julian said, letting the silky mane spill between his fingers like familiar water. "I won't let her have you. I made sure she can't see you. She's not the only one with magic around here. Besides, it was my turn this time, anyway."

As he left the clearing, hands in his pockets, the foal romped ahead, pouncing on a stick and crushing it to splinters with a flurry of silver hooves. Then, it tossed its mane and looked over his shoulder at Julian, snorting contemptuously.

"No, I don't think she cares whose turn it is, either," Julian said, laughing again. The garden closed over them as they made their way toward the gates.

***

"Did you miss me?" Fiona stepped out of an oval mirror and into a fanciful black-and-white playroom where a silver-haired toddler was playing with a triad of floating silver balls. Every time she saw him, her heart was filled with a rare, strange feeling that she only remembered feeling once before.

"Not terribly much." He was dressed in velvet and lace, a tiny prince with rosy cheeks and disconcertingly blue eyes. They were the only thing about him she didn't adore. "Why do you keep thinking that I remind you of someone?" The spheres popped and silver marbles rained down all over the checkerboard floor. 

"That's hardly any of your business, Dramon." Children. This was why Fiona was never fond of them. They never did know their place.

"I know my place." Dramon got to his feet and clambered up several steps to take a seat on an elegantly gilded toy throne. "It is right here." 

"That's my sweetling." Then again, children had their uses, and not just for the memories they inspired.

Dramon shifted so that his little feet hung over the arm of the throne, kicking, while his back was set against the other side. He could see out the window from there, staring into the distance. Fiona had cleaned up his toys with a cantrip and summoned up the white doves for today's practice in blood magic when she realized that he had been silent for a long time.

"What are you thinking of, my darling?" She killed a dove with an easy twist of her hands. 

"Just of other days in my life," he said musingly. "All of my lessons. Do you ever think sometimes, Mother, that the more things change, the more they stay the same? Do you not think that Order, being most powerful, would make it so?"

Fiona killed another dove and shook her head so that the flowers that were trapped in her hair drifted down. "I hope not." She dropped the body to the black granite slab that was her workspace and pulled another terrified and silent bird from the cage. "I'd hate to have to try again."

 


End file.
